My Peruvian host parents both really enjoy watching movies – not in the snobby I-watch-beautiful-pieces-of-cinema-way, but in the I-still-find-time-to-relax kind of way. My host dad, He Yong, only speaks Mandarin and often watches really dramatic Chinese soap operas and period piece Chinese war movies. I sometimes sit with him for a few minutes to watch what he has on. As the movie plays, He Yong chats with me about what is going on, and I sometimes pose questions about things that I don’t understand. A couple nights ago, he explained that the outfits the magistrates were wearing were actually “very Tang dynasty.” After saying that, he double-checked I knew what he meant. I confirmed I knew he was talking about the Tang dynasty, but joked that I didn’t know what “very Tang dynasty” as an adjective meant, but then confirmed that it’s fun learning about Chinese history. He Yong and I communicate with lots of clarification and double-checking as both of us seem to enjoy telling jokes. We both want to be supportive to one another by laughing at the jokes made by the other, but often we actually don’t fully understand the joke. We still laugh though, I think in large part at the absurdity of our communication.
Wendy, my host mom, speaks Spanish and Mandarin, and often sits and watches movies, too. She doesn’t seem as into the movies, as evidenced by her iPad or other reading material on her lap while she watches, but enjoys unwinding together after a long day.
Recently, I saw that He Yong had chosen a movie I recognized and really like – Inception. And it was in English with Chinese subtitles! He Yong and I started our movie commentary.
Talking about Inception in English is already confusing enough – so which dream world reality level was your favorite? Do you believe we’re alive or dreaming? Do you think the totem at the end is going to keep spinning or will it stop? The terminology within the movie itself is very specific (i.e. the kick, a totem) and the movie elicits philosophical questions. I tried to ask He Yong about the totem, but I literally asked something like “In the last part, do you think that the thing in his hand is still doing or is it not do?” He Yong looked at me, not really sure what I meant by do, and instead posed his own question, which I did not completely understand. I think he said that the movie has a lot of religious themes and in fact is really Buddhist. He then made a more specific, probably very interesting, comment that I did not understand. Wendy then in Spanish said to me that this movie was too complicated for her. Both could tell I wanted to continue to talk about it, but it was late, and I didn’t really have the words to talk about it in Spanish or Mandarin. We all laughed, once again at our earnest linguistic efforts that came up a little short.
Thus, I have a new metric of language proficiency. Can you talk about Inception naturally and cogently in that language? Using this rubric, I speak almost one language.